The Flames hosted the Chicago Black Hawks last night, a team which has just owned the Flames for the past few years in what was yet another must win game for the Flames. Led by solid play up the middle by all four centers, and a solid effort by Miikka Kiprusoff the Flames beat the Hawks 3-1 in what was an extremely entertaining game that had a true playoff feel to it.

there were a couple milestones for the Flames during the win. First Lance Bouma got his first NHL point as he assisted on Mikael Backlund’s first period goal with a nifty little pass that sent Backlund in alone to go forehand backhand on Hawks goalie Corey Crawford. Then in the third period with the score tied at one Olli Jokinen (yup that Olli Jokinen) led an impressive rush and flipped a beauty of a backhand saucer pass right on the tape of a streaking Curtis Glencross who buried the eventual game winning goal going roof over the glove of Crawford. The assist was Jokinen’s 600th point of his career.

Patrick Kane scored in the second frame being the recipient of a hard working play and nice pass from Hawks captain Jonathan Toews which did tie the game at one in the second frame. The only other scoring saw Rene Bourque finally getting a goal as he tucked one into the empty net to seal the game away for Calgary.

The Calgary Flames are 13-3-4 in their last 20 games since Darryl Sutter stepped down from the Flames, and now sit in 8th place in the Western Conference. Yes other teams have games in hand, and Calgary still probably needs to leapfrog a couple more teams to feel more comfortable but they are only two points out of 4th in the conference, and to be blunt I did not believe that a change in the GM’s office would cause that much of a turn around in the locker room but clearly I was wrong. This team has turned their season around. You don’t go on 20 game streaks like that on luck.

So to the Calgary Flames players and coaches. I’m sorry. I was firmly on the blow it up bandwagon, and clearly I was wrong. I did not realize that the black cloud hovering over this team was caused by one man in the GM’s office, but when you watched Glencross score to make it 2-1 and you looked in the GM’s box to see all the guys jumping around cheering, then clearly the biggest problem with the Flames was attitude. That in itself has earned interim GM Jay Feaster the full time GM job in my opinion.

Up next for the Flames is a game against the Ottawa Senators tomorrow at the dome. This is a scary game that I hope the Flames take seriously and not look ahead to the game against Vancouver in a few days.